Derek Poe of Golden Triangle Tactical shows off an AR-15 from Troy Industries, which is the rifle that volunteers for Poe's border group will be carrying. Poe is organizing a group of volunteers to travel to the Texas-Mexico border. Poe says that not only will his store supply firearms and night vision equipment to volunteers, but the deployments will be a paying endeavor.
Photo taken Wednesday 8/27/14
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX less

Derek Poe of Golden Triangle Tactical shows off an AR-15 from Troy Industries, which is the rifle that volunteers for Poe's border group will be carrying. Poe is organizing a group of volunteers to travel to ... more

Photo: Jake Daniels

Image 3 of 4

Derek Poe of Golden Triangle Tactical shows off an AR-15 from Troy Industries, which is the rifle that volunteers for Poe's border group will be carrying. Poe is organizing a group of volunteers to travel to the Texas-Mexico border. Poe says that not only will his store supply firearms and night vision equipment to volunteers, but the deployments will be a paying endeavor.
Photo taken Wednesday 8/27/14
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX less

Derek Poe of Golden Triangle Tactical shows off an AR-15 from Troy Industries, which is the rifle that volunteers for Poe's border group will be carrying. Poe is organizing a group of volunteers to travel to ... more

Photo: Jake Daniels

Image 4 of 4

Jury clears Hardin Co. man in mall gun carry case

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Three and a half years after he was accused of knowingly alarming shoppers by carrying a long rifle through Parkdale Mall, a Hardin County man was acquitted by a Jefferson County jury after his attorney argued that he was not wearing the weapon to intentionally scare people.

Derek Poe, 28, who steadfastly asserted his constitutional rights, was found not guilty on Thursday of a charge of disorderly conduct.

On Dec. 28, 2013, Poe, who was the owner of Golden Triangle Tactical, a store selling firearm accessories inside the mall, walked through the building with an AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle, strapped to his back.

At least one person called 911 after seeing Poe with the gun, and Beaumont Police confiscated the weapon. He was later charged with disorderly conduct. The District Attorney's Office contended Poe violated a statute by "intentionally and knowingly display[ing] a deadly weapon, namely a firearm, in a public place and in a manner calculated to alarm."

Poe told The Enterprise after the incident that he had carried the rifle daily for months without any problems.

Poe's attorney, Edwin Walker, said he was able to prove his client was carrying the weapon to his car from his store, where he used it to demonstrate the accessories he sold, and that the act was not "calculated" to alarm anyone.

"It's not a result-oriented crime, it's a conduct crime, so the fact that people were alarmed, people in their own subjective experience were alarmed at seeing a rifle that was doing nothing more than being carried in a sling, is not criminalized," Walker said on Monday.

Walker said Poe was carrying the gun when he stopped in at Chick-Fil-A and GameStop to make purchases.

District Attorney Bob Wortham said he was surprised by the trial's outcome but blamed it on insufficient evidence and length of time.

"One of the problems about that case is there was a lot of stuff that wasn't preserved, a lot of 911 calls," he said. Wortham said many people called police after seeing Poe with the weapon, but the state was only able to retrieve one from BPD to use in the trial.

"We didn't have a lot of evidence we would have had, because it was so old," he said.

The case was extended for almost four years partly by a lengthy appeals process, in which Walker and Poe argued that the charge and case were unconstitutional.

In a 2015 filing at the state's Ninth Court of Appeals, Walker argued that the Texas Penal Code statute for disorderly conduct violated his rights under the Texas Constitution and the First, Second, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

He argued that "the open carry of a rifle or shotgun is protected expressive conduct under the First Amendment," and that the law was "unconstitutionally vague and overbroad," violating his rights to free speech and to bear arms.

The appeals court ruled against Poe, sending it back to Jefferson County Court at Law No. 2, where Assistant District Attorney Cornelius Williams argued against Walker for four days last week.

Walker said the jury acquitted Poe after only 10 minutes of deliberation.

Wortham said the case sets a concerning precedent for law enforcement.

"What if he takes the gun into a crowded movie theater? If he decides to do that again, just because he got off on that, we would go after him again," he said.

A vocal gun rights advocate, Poe told The Enterprise in 2014 that he wanted to form an armed militia to patrol the Texas-Mexico border to curb a surge of undocumented Central American women and children who sought refuge in the United States.

Poe was arrested in August 2015 on a family domestic violence charge, when he was accused of grabbing his girlfriend's throat during an argument and head-butting her when she tried to leave their home, according to public records.